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essentially consist of setting the stage to enable someone to learn. It would involve creating or providing experiences from which learners will acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and appreciation that will serve as tools in life.
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few were expatriates and missionaries, most of whom had no teacher education preparation.
There were also a few products of the secondary schools that were retained to teach as auxiliary teachers but needed higher skill that could be available only in a university or an advanced teachers‟ college.
The importance of teachers and the roles they play in the educative process are central to basic education, particularly in third world countries. In more advanced countries, there may be close subtitles for teachers‟ roles in the form of teaching machines with programmed instruction (Balogun, 1988), but in developing countries such as Nigeria, teachers undoubtedly remain the managers of knowledge. In other words, teacher education in Nigeria is, and should be, the foundation of quality and relevance of education at all levels. Indeed, the National Policy on Education (Revised 2004) clearly endorses the fact that “no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers”. The expectation is very critical, not only to the effectiveness of teaching, but equally to the survival of the various disciplines in the curriculum of education.
The National Policy on education in the section on teacher education provides that all teachers in educational institution from pre – primary to tertiary, shall be professionally trained as teachers. In practice, however, teaching has remained an all- comers trade and real professionalization is yet to be fully attained. The situation is more distressing at the tertiary education level where the practitioners prefer not to be classified as teachers but as lecturers. A preponderance of the lecturers in the universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education are therefore not professionally trained to function as teachers. In Colleges of Education for example professional qualification in education is an imperative criterion for the recruitment of teacher – educators. Therefore in the production of effective teachers, the teaching quality of those that were involved as lecturer needs to be evaluated so as to infuse standard in the products.
Afemikhe (1995) concluded that:
Good teachers would beget good students from which the system can get a replenishment of its teaching stock.
In the same token, poor teachers will beget poor students and consequently poorer future teachers.
This quotation points to the fact that quality of teachers determines the effectiveness of teaching and worth of students. Teacher education is expected to produce teachers with appropriate skills, knowledge and affective dispositions as demanded by the educational system.
Asron (2003) identified some specific areas of teacher education that need improvement. These
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areas include teachers‟ communication skill, teaching of numeracy and basic sciences, use of instructional time, promotion of active learning, assessment techniques and teacher teamwork.
Even though there are still signs of no commitment to teaching and many teachers would want to leave the profession at the slightest opportunity, it is heart-warming to note that a larger proportion of the current day teachers are professionally trained.
The country became independent on 1st of October, 1960. This brought a new development in the field of education that caters for the numerous need of the citizen. This lead to the setting up of various committee to find a lasting solution to educational problem. Ashby Report of 1960 which was set up for post – school certificate and Higher Education, Advanced Teacher Training Colleges (Now Colleges of Education) were established as from 1962, to produce well – qualified non – graduate teachers to teach lower classes within secondary schools. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) had earlier in 1960 started an experimental B.A and B. Sc. Degrees in Education which attracted severe criticism. However, Mkpar (2002) stated that the trial that UNN blazed yielded good result because at present there are about 53 federal and state universities having faculties of education, and 62 Colleges of Education and polytechnics. In all these institutions, B.A/ B.Sc degrees in Education are offered.
In order to maintain high standard in teacher education, the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) was established in 1989 with power among other functions to:
i. co-ordinate all aspects of sub-degree teacher education;
ii. lay down minimum standard for all programme of teacher education and accredit their certificate and other academic awards;
ii. approve guidelines setting out criteria for accreditation of all Colleges of Education in Nigeria;
iii. lay down standards to be attained and continually review such standards (Decree 1 of 1989).
The National Policy on Education (2004) further stipulated that teacher education should recognize the need for changes in methodology and curriculum and teachers should be exposed to innovations in their profession. The type of teachers needed in Nigeria had become clearly defined in the National Policy on Education. This prescription implies that the minimum qualification to teach in our primary schools in Nigeria is NCE and both junior and senior secondary schools also require NCE qualifications.
29 2.4.1 Characteristics of an Effective Teacher
Quite a number of attempts have been made to identify the attributes and skills of an effective teacher. According to Dillman and Browker (2001), effective teachers have in common the following characteristics:
1. Devotion to their Profession: Fortunately, although most of us do not realize it, teaching is a task that has the potential value of creating a better society through making desirable changes in individuals. The effective teacher has a positive attitude towards professional help.
2. Competence in teaching subject: Though obvious, this aspect of a teacher‟s job is not always emphasized in faculties of education. It is taken for granted that the teaching subject faculties are responsible for imparting the knowledge. An effective teacher knows the subject in and out, not just what is to be covered as shown in the syllabus. A teacher‟s knowledge of the teaching subject should not be less than that of a non- education graduate of the same field. It is only then that a teacher can open the doors of the field in an interesting and exciting manner to students.
3. Willing to add to knowledge base: Education is not static; new knowledge, ideas and insight of application of this knowledge emerge daily. A teacher who does not update his/her knowledge regularly soon becomes stale and outdated. Effective teachers always find the slightest opportunity to update their knowledge and skills.
The effective teacher is a practical scholar, a student of the academic discipline.
4. Flexible and open-minded: Effective teachers are not fixed and limited in their ways. They are open-minded to receiving new ideas. They can see things from several angles, thus approach a topic from several viewpoints. They have creative minds.
5. Facilitate learning in students: Effective teachers do not show off what they know;
rather help the students to learn.
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6. Control students in constructive activities: The students know who the teacher in charge of the classroom is –. Yet, the effective teacher is not overbearing. He has affirmative personality, good humour, and encourages students by example.
7. Take initiative, and has generally well organized plans which are often well presented.
8. Active in the community, initiate parent contacts, and co-operate with parents.
9. Faces reality in an objective way: The effective teacher does not allow his/her emotions to cloud his/her judgment. He/she finds a way of ascertaining facts. When teachers have problems of their own, i.e emotional conflicts, fears, fixations, etc., they know that these may show themselves in their behaviour towards the students.
The effective teacher seeks help and tries to free himself/herself from such emotional problems.
10. Inspires confidence: An effective teacher takes pride in what he/she does. He/she attacks new problems with zest; he/she is convincing. His/her voice inspires confidence and his/her mental and physical energy is at a higher level than average.
These characteristics can be categorized into three areas: Personal qualities, knowledge, and skills. These three areas are illustrated in figure 2.2. Brophy and Good (1986) depict an effective teacher as one who is well organized, efficient, task-oriented and businesslike in the classroom. From data collected, they saw the effective teacher as one who lectures, demonstrates, and his/her students receive feedback on their practices
31 Personal Qualities
Knowledge Skills
Fig 2.2: Trademarks of a teacher (After Anderson, 1989)
Clark and Peterson (1986 painted a portrait of an effective teacher thus:
…thinking plays an important part in teaching and the image of a teacher a reflective professional… is not far-fetched.
Teachers do plan in a rich variety of ways, and these plans have real consequences in the classroom. Teachers do have
thoughts and make decisions frequently – during interactive teaching.
Teachers do have theories and belief systems that influence their Perceptions, plans and actions…
The emerging picture of the teacher as a professional is a developmental one that begins during undergraduate teacher education; and continues to grow and changes with professional experience. The education majors who would become professionals are firmly grounded in the disciplines and subject matters that they will teach. Their study of subject matter focuses on both content and on the cognitive organization in ways useful to themselves and their future students.
They had both supervised practice in using the behavioural skills and strategies of teaching and have also been initiated into the less visible aspects of teaching including the full variety of types of planning and interactive decision making.
The maturing professional teacher is one who has taken some steps towards making explicit his or her implicit theories and beliefs about learners, curriculum, subject matter, and the teacher‟s role. This teacher has developed a style of planning for instruction that includes several interrelated types of planning and that has become more streamlined and automatic with experience. Much of this teacher‟s interactive teaching consists of routines familiar to the students, thus decreasing the collective information-processing load. During teaching, the teacher attends to and intently processes academic and non-academic events and cues. These
Teacher
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experienced teachers have developed the confidence to depart from a planned course of action when they judge that to be appropriate. They reflect on and analyse the apparent effects of their own teaching and apply the results of these reflections to their future plans and actions.